


Redecorating

by orphan_account



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Angst, Blood, Brief Carlos/Cecil, Carlos has trouble with emotions, Enemies to... not enemies?, Gen, No romance between Carlos and Kevin, Self Harm, The Desert Otherworld (Welcome to Night Vale), hurt little comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-30
Updated: 2020-05-30
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:00:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24463159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Kevin wants to redecorate his and Carlos's new home in the desert otherworld. Carlos doesn't like his style of decorating.
Relationships: Carlos/Cecil Palmer, Carlos/Kevin (Welcome to Night Vale)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18





	Redecorating

**Author's Note:**

> Some quick warnings:  
> -Kevin kills and mutilates some small animals (only mentioned).  
> -There's an explicit scene of Kevin cutting himself. It's pretty brief but it's also pretty detailed.  
> -Carlos and the Masked Army do some hurtful things to Kevin. That's basically the whole fic.
> 
> I love Kevin dearly, he's just very damaged and I like writing that aspect of him.

Carlos was always wary of Kevin. The man was deranged after all, Carlos had plenty of reasons to be disturbed by him. His physical appearance was one thing, though Carlos tried not to judge him based on that. Kevin gave Carlos plenty of other reasons to think he was creepy.

Kevin had been bringing dead animals into their dwelling almost as soon as it had been built. Carlos would frequently exit his makeshift lab to find mutilated snakes and lizards scattering the floor. He’d picked up a few for study the first time they appeared, but they’d provided almost no scientific data as he couldn’t determine how much of their appearance was a quirk of the desert otherworld and how much of it was due to having been mutilated. He’d mentioned it to Kevin that evening, during the time he referred to as Dinner Time even though neither of them had to eat or drink in this place. They’d sat at the makeshift table, Kevin babbling incessantly about something Carlos didn’t care to understand while Carlos tried to get a word in about his latest experiment.

“Did you see the dead animals on the floor?” he asked a third time, finally snapping Kevin out of his ramble.

“Oh, you noticed!” Kevin said, brimming with excitement. “I decided we needed to do some redecorating in here. Really make it feel like home.”

“I’d prefer not to have dead animals spread around the floor of my home,” Carlos growled.

“Hm. I suppose you’re right. How do you think the masked warriors would look? They’d be awfully hard to pin down, but once we brought them back here I think it’d really bring some character to the place.”

“What? Absolutely not! You are not murdering a member of the masked army to decorate our house.”

“They are very dangerous,” Kevin agreed. Carlos felt like he didn’t really agree, like there were far bigger problems with murdering someone and using them as carpeting than the fact that they would fight back. He wasn’t sure if Kevin had picked up on that. He wasn’t sure if Kevin could comprehend that.

Carlos has spent the evening mopping up reptile blood from the floor of the cabin. He didn’t realize until he was finished that it was morning, the sun had already risen and he didn’t even feel tired. He supposed that meant he didn’t need to sleep either, which felt more tragic than freeing. Sleeping, eating, all these things made him feel normal, and the knowledge that they were pointless rituals ruined that feeling.

Kevin was not happy with Carlos when he walked out of his bedroom that morning. He stared at the clean floor with his empty black eyes, breathing heavily as if trying to hold back tears.

“You… redecorated,” he muttered. “Without me.”

“You did the same. I don’t want a mess in my house.”

“A _mess,_ ” Kevin scoffed. “A mess? I worked hard on that, you know. For us. And you’ve just picked it all up and thrown it away.”

“I’m sorry if I upset you,” Carlos sighed. “I just don’t like it. You can decorate your own room if you’d like. But you’re still staying away from the masked army.”

“Fine.”

Carlos still ended up having to mop up the trails of blood leading to Kevin’s room, but Kevin left the rest of the house clean. He spent most of his time in his room, and Carlos was more than okay with that. He remained in his lab most of the day, and when he wasn’t in the lab he was in his own room, laying in his bed like it was some kind of substitute for sleep. Kevin had stopped joining him for dinner, and Carlos had stopped sitting at the table every evening. With no food and no one to talk to, it just felt sad.

After a week, however, the smell from Kevin’s room became unbearable.

Carlos pounded his fist on Kevin’s door, his lab coat pulled over his nose and mouth to block the smell of rotting meat.

“Hey there!” Kevin exclaimed, grinning as he opened the door. Carlos glanced past him into his bedroom. Every surface was covered with blood-the floor, the ceiling, his bed. His bed was the worst of it, in fact, Carlos could see whole chunks of meat sitting on top of what may have once been sheets. It was crawling with insects, attracted by the decaying flesh. Kevin was covered in blood, his clothes soaked with the stuff and his hair stuck to his head with the stuff. Carlos thought he saw at least one bug crawling beneath his curls.

“Kevin, you have got to clean in here,” Carlos grumbled, tasting the rot in his mouth as he spoke.

“What’s wrong?” Kevin asked, cocking his head to the side.

“I can smell your room from outside. It’s disgusting and you need to clean it.”

“You said I could do what I wanted with my room.” Kevin crossed his arms. He was still grinning, but he no longer sounded cheerful.

“Well, what you’ve done with your room is now affecting things outside your room. So you need to do something about it.”

“I do not.”

“Hell, I’ll clean it for you if you won’t do it yourself.”

_”No!”_

“How can you even stand to be in there? Did whatever did that to your face mess up your nose too?”

“Did _what_ to my face?”

Carlos sighed, slamming the door in Kevin’s face and walking back to the kitchen to grab his mop and bucket. They’d been gifted to him by the masked army, who by now were very aware of Kevin’s living habits. The smell from his room was apparently beginning to waft over to their camp, and cleaning it up would benefit them just as much as it would benefit Carlos. He filled the bucket with water from the tap-it was a bit murky and he didn’t know where it came from, but considering he never had to drink it he didn’t mind. He set the bucket on the ground outside Kevin’s room, and didn’t even bother knocking before opening the door.

Kevin was laying in his bed, one hand under his shirt and the other tightly gripping a piece of rotting meat. His expression was hard to read, as it always was, but Carlos was certain it was pleasure. Of what variety, he had no idea, and he didn’t particularly want to speculate. Kevin whimpered when he heard the door open, pulling his thoroughly blood-soaked hand out from under his shirt. He sat up on the edge of his bed, the hunk of meat still in his hand, and the pleasure faded from his face when he saw Carlos’s mop.

“No!” he whined. Carlos rolled his eyes. He didn’t feel bad.

“Get out,” he demanded, pointing a finger to the side. “Either help me clean or leave.”

“You’re not messing up my room!” Kevin exclaimed. “I won’t let you!”

Carlos ignored him, dragging the bucket into Kevin’s room. Kevin leapt from his bed, rushing towards Carlos. Carlos held out his mop as if to defend himself, but Kevin stopped short of him and kicked over the bucket of water. He looked at Carlos, crossing his arms as if to ask “What are you going to do about it?” Carlos answered him by dragging the mop through the spilled water, succeeding in nothing more than soaking the mop in watered-down blood and spreading the mess all over the floor, but clearly upsetting Kevin nonetheless.

Kevin continued whimpering, and Carlos kept staring into his empty eyes, worthlessly mopping over the same area as Kevin’s clawed hands tightened into fists. He braced himself for Kevin to punch him, but instead Kevin suddenly reached out a hand and took hold of Carlos’s sleeve, pulling his hand off the mop and fitting his hand into his twisted maw. His abandoned-cemetery teeth dug into Carlos’s skin, and Carlos screamed, batting at Kevin with the mop. Kevin persisted, gnawing on Carlos’s arm like a dog. The only thing that finally got him to loosen his grip was a loud crash from outside the room.

Both men poked their heads through the doorway, Kevin mercifully releasing Carlos’s arm in the process. The hulking form of a masked warrior stood in their small living room, and behind it were the smashed remains of their front door. Carlos wasn’t even upset at the door being destroyed. Just another thing he had to clean up.

“Doug?” he said, thinking he recognized the masked warrior. The masked warrior shook their head, moving slowly closer to Carlos and Kevin. It reached through the doorway and grabbed Kevin’s shoulder. Kevin twisted his head around in an attempt to bite the masked warrior, swiping his clawed hands in their direction, all to no avail. The masked warrior gave Carlos a nod and dragged Kevin away, out the broken door. Carlos stood in the doorway of Kevin’s room, the unbearable smell of rot still overwhelming his senses, listening to Kevin’s angry babbling as the masked warrior dragged him outside.

Carlos shrugged to himself and brought the bucket back into the kitchen to refill it.

It took another two days of not sleeping, eating, or pausing to do anything to finish cleaning Kevin’s room. By the time he’d tossed hundreds of buckets of bloody water and a pile of rotting meat out the window, the smell still lingered in Kevin’s room, but he didn’t feel like passing out just from being in it. Kevin’s bed did, in fact, have sheets on it, and he’d had to soak them in the bucket several times over before all the blood was washed out. Much of the room was stained a disgusting reddish brown, but at least the surfaces were no longer sticky. He still didn’t feel comfortable sitting on the bed, but when he walked out of the room the rest of the little house smelled much better.

Carlos made his way outside to the pile of blood and meat outside Kevin’s window, surprised to find two masked warriors already digging a hole next to it.

“Sorry for putting all this smelly stuff outside,” Carlos said, picking up one of the shovel-like objects on the ground and beginning to dig. One of the masked warriors shook their head, gently taking the shovel from his hand. They picked up a hammer and nails from the ground and handed them to Carlos.

“Oh, for fixing the door,” Carlos said. “Thank you.”

The masked warrior shook their head again. They gestured over to their right, indicating another masked warrior arriving over a hill. Carlos recognized them as the warrior who had taken Kevin a few days prior. This warrior was carrying a few wooden boards under one arm, and dragging a kicking and screaming Kevin with the other.

Kevin’s clothes and hair were significantly less bloody, and he was clawing at his own shirt where the masked warrior was holding tightly to the collar, dragging him along behind them. He was whining about how empty the camp was, how if he’d only been allowed to decorate it everyone would be so much happier. The masked warrior ignored his thrashing and complaints. They handed the boards to Carlos, who struggled to hold them along with the hammer and nails. The masked warrior walked around the pit and through the still-broken door, and Carlos followed them. He watched as they tossed a still-babbling Kevin into his newly cleaned room. Kevin, clearly upset by this, began screaming louder.

The masked warrior took a board from Carlos and held it against the door. Carlos didn’t need to ask questions. He nailed the board into the wall as the masked warrior held it in place and repeated the process three more times, securing Kevin into his room. When he finished, he sank to the floor, exhausted (but not sleepy) after all the work. Kevin was shouting and pounding on the door, but once he was shut in his lab, Carlos could ignore him. He only heard Kevin when he walked past his room that night on his way to bed.

Kevin remained in there, howling and pounding on the door for days. Carlos didn’t care. He really, really didn’t. He didn’t even feel like he should. He hated the desert otherworld, he hated everything about it and he hated Kevin.

Cecil was definitely asleep when Carlos called him. Carlos knew that. He’d been waiting until nightfall to call Cecil, knowing he wouldn’t be able to maintain his composure talking to Cecil directly. He waited out a few rings before his phone went to voicemail, and he took a deep breath as he figured out what to say.

“Hey, Cecil. So… my new roommate is… weird.” He paused, letting the faint sounds of Kevin banging on the door fill the air. He wasn’t sure if they were loud enough to be picked up by the phone, but he figured he should give Cecil a chance to hear what was going on. “I had to clean up the mess he made in his room. It took a few days, but the masked warriors were a big help. We… we boarded him up in there. I don’t know if I should be okay with that. I mean, I am, and he was threatening to kill the masked warriors and he bit me when I told him he needed to clean his room so he’s clearly dangerous, but… he’s human. I think he is. Or was, maybe. It feels wrong to do that to him but I-I don’t care. Am I a bad person?”

He paused, wondering if he should delete the voicemail and start over. He decided not to. Cecil should hear what he was really thinking.

“I miss you, Cecil. You’d know what to do. Or… you probably wouldn’t, but you’d trust me. I need someone to trust me right now. I’ve been doing science, and trying to figure out a way to get home. I’m trying so hard, and I don’t have anyone to help me and I hardly have any data and it’s just hard, when I have to deal with _him_ all the time and I miss you, Cecil. I miss you so much.”

Carlos paused again, this time wondering if he should send the voicemail right now before he really started crying. He could sit there sobbing into his phone, telling Cecil he loved him for hours upon hours, getting less and less coherent as the hours passed.

“I love you,” he concluded. “I miss you and I love you. That’s it.”

He sent the voicemail, set his phone down next to his bed, and cried into his pillow.

It was morning when he stopped crying. He hadn’t been able to hear it over his own sobs, but when he walked out of his bedroom, he noticed Kevin had stopped banging on his door. Maybe he was letting his guard down, maybe it was stupid, but after a night of crying Carlos was starting to worry about Kevin. Not care. He still didn’t care, but he was worried. The change could be significant. A lot of changes were significant, certainly more significant than things staying the same. It was simply scientific.

He retrieved the hammer from the kitchen (the masked warrior had left it there, apparently as another housewarming present) and began prying the boards off of Kevin’s door. He listened intently for any noise inside, but Kevin was still silent. It was creepy. He’d been screaming and pounding for days, it seemed odd that he’d just stop completely like this.

He opened the door slowly and carefully, not really eager to see what was inside. The smell had gone, and that was good, but because Kevin was Kevin, it stood to reason that something had to be amiss in that room.

Kevin was sitting in his bed again, curled up tightly so as little of his skin was touching the clean sheets as possible. He was bloody. Bleeding, in fact. In his hand was a knife, the length of a kitchen knife and just a bit wider, dripping with blood. Blood dripped down his arms and onto his shirt and the sheets beneath him. Carlos had trouble seeing his wounds at first, because nothing seemed to stand out. His arms were covered in them, to the point that they were more wound than flesh, the whole surface red and bleeding. It was an impossible amount of blood. It was an amount of blood that should not have been coming out of a still-living person.

“Where’d you get the knife?” Carlos asked, barely above a whisper. It was a dumb question. It was the least important question he could have asked, but it was the only one that he felt could have had a reasonable answer.

Kevin turned his head toward him slowly, his empty eyes wide and sparkling with… tears? More blood?

“One of the masked warriors gave it to me. Through the window,” Kevin explained, his voice soft and cheerful. “Thought they could help me redecorate in here.”

Carlos nodded. He wanted to get mad at Kevin for trying to get his room bloody again right after he’d spent days cleaning it. But he couldn’t. When he looked into those big, black eyes, Carlos saw a person beneath them. A person, scared and alone in another world, just like he was. Kevin didn’t have a Cecil he could call when he needed to cry. Decorating was how he felt at home. Carlos had taken away the thing that had been keeping Kevin grounded, making him feel okay. Kevin wasn’t some inhuman monster trashing his home for no reason. He was homesick.

And Carlos cared.

“You shouldn’t do that,” Carlos mumbled.

Kevin blinked at him, like he was confused at the suggestion that mutilating himself might be a bad idea. Carlos looked at him, waiting for a response. The masked warriors had washed his hair, leaving his curls soft and flowing. He looked like Cecil.

He _really_ looked like Cecil.

“I’m sorry I wrecked your room,” Carlos said. “I can help you get more blood if you’d like. I have some tools in my lab I can use to get it from the snakes and lizards so we don’t have as much rotting meat lying around.”

“No thanks,” Kevin replied. He ran his hand down his arm, smearing the blood onto his palm and then wiping his palm on his sheets. “Human is… better.”

Carlos swallowed, trying to ignore the creepiness of that statement.

“You’re not going to be able to get enough blood out of yourself to cover the whole room. It’ll kill you.”

Kevin flipped his arm over. There was still a patch of undamaged skin near the crook of his elbow. Carlos flinched as he watched Kevin drag the knife over it a few times, shredding the flesh until it was ugly and red like the rest of his arms.

“Maybe it looks better, but if this is the cost…”

“You want me to cut you?” Kevin hissed.

“No! No, please don’t. I just mean if you want blood, I can help you get it. You shouldn’t hurt yourself.”

“What do you care?” Kevin’s smile still split his face, but his eyes were dripping. Blood. It was blood.

“Kevin, I care about you.”

“No you don’t.”

“I didn’t at first. But I should have. And I’m sorry.”

Kevin spun the knife in his hand, looking over his arms for more skin to cut open. There was no more. Carlos didn’t know how long he’d been at it, how long it had taken him to cover his arms in one huge wound, but he was willing to bet it had been hours. Hours of cutting and bleeding and… was Kevin crying before he walked in? Surely he was in pain, he must have been with the amount of damage he’d done to his arms. Carlos knew he would’ve cried after that, and he’d always thought of himself as having a pretty high tolerance for pain.

“You’re scared. And you miss home,” Carlos continued. “I do too. I was just… I was scared. I was scared of you, and I shouldn’t have been, because you’re just scared and alone and you want to feel at home. And this is how you do that.”

Kevin nodded.

“You’re from Desert Bluffs. The town next to Night Vale.”

Kevin nodded again.

“My town doesn’t seem to like yours very much. I mean, it makes sense, considering you tried to let an evil corporation take us over. And you were kind of a big part of that, so I feel like you’re kind of responsible. So I should be mad at you.”

Kevin squeezed the handle of the knife tightly.

“But you didn’t want this either, did you? I mean, I don’t really know you. Maybe I should get to know you better.”

Carlos approached Kevin’s bed carefully, watching the knife closely, still half expecting Kevin to lash out at him. Kevin sat still, staring at Carlos with his wide, empty eyes. Carlos looked into his eyes. They were worse up close, empty pits full of blood and what looked like decaying tissue. Like he’d had eyes once, but they had rotted in his head.

“Kevin… I’m sorry.”

Kevin wiped the bloody tears from his cheek, and then reached out to take Carlos’s hand. Carlos was grossed out by the blood, but he took Kevin’s hand anyway. The blood was warm and sticky on his palm. It was disgusting, but he didn’t let go.

“You’re not gonna be alone here, okay? We’re not gonna be alone.”

Kevin nodded, setting his knife down and reaching up to wipe more bloody tears from his eyes.

“Okay,” he said softly. “Okay.”


End file.
